Writer E. Jean Carroll (centre) arrives in Manhattan Federal Court on the first day of a defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump. She alleges he raped her in the locker room of a department store in the 1990s.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
hide captions
switch captions
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
Writer E. Jean Carroll (centre) arrives in Manhattan Federal Court on the first day of a defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump. She alleges he raped her in the locker room of a department store in the 1990s.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
NEW YORK — The attorneys for former President Trump and E. Jean Carroll, the woman who accused him of raping her in an upscale Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, have presented statements. completely contradicting accounts of what happened or didn’t happen to the jury on Tuesday, the first day of testing in Carroll’s civil lawsuit against Trump.
Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, began his opening statement by vividly retelling the core story of Carroll’s allegations. Crowley described Trump locking Carroll in a dressing room and forcing her to have sex, even when she resisted. Crowley said now, nearly three decades later, Carroll is trying to hold Donald Trump accountable for what he did to her in that dressing room and to “restore her good name.”
There was no video or forensic evidence to back up Carroll’s rape claims, and Carroll wasn’t even sure if the attack took place in 1995 or 1996. But Crowley told the jury that this was not the case. “he said, she said” case, because Carroll alleges would be supported by Testimony of two friends about Carroll, whom she told shortly after the alleged assault, with key details substantiated by two witnesses working at Bergdorf Goodman’s.
In her opening statement, Trump’s attorney Joseph Tacopina attacked every element of the allegation, starting with Carroll’s character, saying she was motivated by money and fame. “You cannot let her profit from abusing this process and her efforts to deceive you,” Tacopina said, adding that her allegations undermine “the the real cause of the rape”. He said Carroll’s inability to remember the month or even year of the alleged attack made it impossible for Trump to provide an alibi.
Trump is charged with assault and defamation in this lawsuit, filed late last year. Carroll has a private civil action only against Trump for defamation, has not been brought to trial.
The jury in the case is anonymous, for security reasons. The six men and three women will only be known by the numbers assigned to them, and will come and go daily by car, and be dropped off at undisclosed drop off points.
Much of Tuesday morning was spent choosing the judges. But even before potential jurors were questioned, New York federal district court Judge Lewis Kaplan bluntly reminded both legal teams to advise their clients and witnesses to avoid making statements. declares “potentially inciting violence or civil unrest” and warns against “commenting or engaging in conduct that is likely to jeopardize the safety or welfare of any individual or law, especially as it applies to proceedings in this courtroom.”
Trump is known to have attacked judges and lawyers, as well as Carroll himself, on social media.
In addition to Carroll’s friends and former Bergdorf employees, Carroll’s attorneys said they will be subpoenaing two women who allege Trump engaged in unwelcome and extreme sexual assault, which is Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds. They will also present excerpts from the “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump brags about his sexual conquests using vulgar language.
At the time it was released, Trump dismissed the tape as a “locker room talk,” and Trump’s attorney Tacopina told jurors it was content: “certainly it wasn’t. the admission of anything,” he said.
Tacopina did not say whether Trump would stand up for him; If he doesn’t, the defense team has only one witness, Dr. Edgar Nace, a psychiatrist.
While Crowley kept his composure as she made Carroll’s statements, Tacopina sometimes appeared genuinely angry, his hands clenched on the lectern and his voice rising.
